Very interesting, although even if you buy the premise of artistic intent, the "Crescent" would appear to be facing away from rather than toward Mecca. We'd love to hear what the landscape architect Warren T. Byrd, Jr., thinks about it all, but so far he hasn't gotten back to us, and as Michelle Malkin noted earlier, the collaborating architect will be unavailable till next week. Not surprisingly, the comments are running heavily in favor of conspiracy from an overwhelming majority of readers who arrived here via links from Scott Johnson of PowerLine and Michelle, both of whom view the "Crescent of Embrace," with its Islamicist connotations, as an inappropriate symbol -- whether intentional or not on the part of the designers -- for a memorial to the heroes of Flight 93. Like most of their fans, they favor scrapping the design and starting over.

I'm not all that worked up about this. In my view, it isn't so much what is in the design - it's what's NOT in it. This memorial should strongly communicate substantively about what transpired on September 11, 2001 in the jet and on this field. It doesn't seem that the current design does that.

As long as you are working on azimuth calculations though - it seems that having the crash site in the 'pincers' of the 'crescent' - which could demonstrate the long reach of Islam - is more ominous than it showing the crash site its convex backside. I'm not suggesting that this is what was intended or if it is just happenstance. It's just a reasonable view to take if one is so inclined to see meaning in the positioning of the 'crescent'.